Stronghold
Your Stronghold is your survivor's home base and the center of long-term progression. Its buildings let you train, recover, process resources, craft equipment, manage survivors, and unlock systems such as vehicles.
Building layout
Every stronghold begins with five fixed, pre-built buildings. These occupy protected positions and cannot be destroyed. Alongside them are expansion slots: the early slots are available near the start of the game and more unlock as your player level rises. An unlocked empty slot lets you construct one eligible building, which can then be upgraded individually.
Unlocking, constructing, upgrading, replacing, or repeating a building can consume valuable materials and time.
Expansion slots
| Slot | Player level | Items required | Cash cost | Unlock time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slot 1 | 1 | None | $125 | 5 seconds |
| Slot 2 | 1 | None | $1,500 | 5 seconds |
| Slot 3 | 7 | None | $2,000 | 15 minutes |
| Slot 4 | 8 | None | $2,500 | 30 minutes |
| Slot 5 | 9 | None | $5,000 | 1 hour |
| Slot 6 | 10 | None | $15,000 | 1 day |
| Slot 7 | 11 | None | $20,000 | 1 day 6 hours |
| Slot 8 | 12 | 5 × Broken Remote | $25,000 | 1 day 13 hours 30 minutes |
| Slot 9 | 13 | 5 × Advanced Tools | $30,000 | 1 day 22 hours 52 minutes 30 seconds |
| Slot 10 | 14 | 5 × Salvaged Tech | $50,000 | 2 days 10 hours 35 minutes 38 seconds |
| Slot 11 | 15 | 6 × Electrical Components | $75,000 | 3 days 1 hour 14 minutes 32 seconds |
| Slot 12 | 16 | 7 × Electrical Components | $100,000 | 3 days 19 hours 33 minutes 10 seconds |
| Slot 13 | 17 | 8 × Electrical Components | $250,000 | 4 days 18 hours 26 minutes 27 seconds |
| Slot 14 | 18 | 9 × Electrical Components | $500,000 | 5 days 23 hours 3 minutes 4 seconds |
| Slot 15 | 19 | 10 × Electrical Components | $1,000,000 | 7 days 10 hours 48 minutes 50 seconds |
| Slot 16 | 20 | 1 × Computer Board | $2,000,000 | 9 days 7 hours 31 minutes 3 seconds |
| Slot 17 | 21 | 2 × Computer Board | $3,000,000 | 11 days 15 hours 23 minutes 48 seconds |
| Slot 18 | 22 | 3 × Computer Board | $4,000,000 | 14 days 13 hours 14 minutes 45 seconds |
| Slot 19 | 23 | 4 × Computer Board | $5,000,000 | 18 days 4 hours 33 minutes 27 seconds |
| Slot 20 | 24 | 5 × Computer Board | $6,000,000 | 22 days 17 hours 41 minutes 49 seconds |
Available buildings
| Image | Building | Purpose | Pre-built | Fixed | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Medical Bay | Recover health and craft medical supplies | ✓ | ✓ | — |
 | Gym | Train combat stats to become stronger in battle | ✓ | ✓ | — |
 | Weapon Bench | Craft melee weapons and firearms | — | — | ✓ |
 | Ammo Bench | Produce ammunition and gunpowder | — | — | ✓ |
 | Kitchen | Prepare food and purify water | — | — | ✓ |
 | Armour Bench | Craft clothing and protective equipment | — | — | ✓ |
 | Radio Tower | Trade resources for useful materials and supplies | — | — | — |
 | Survivor Camp | House survivors and manage prisoner labour | — | — | ✓ |
 | Grill | Cook meat and fish into food | — | — | ✓ |
 | Tech Lab | Salvage technology and craft electronic components | — | — | ✓ |
 | Garage | Build vehicles for travel and exploration | ✓ | ✓ | — |
 | Furniture Workshop | Craft furniture and furnishings for your House | — | — | ✓ |
 | Coal Auto Mine | Automatically produce Coal over time | — | — | ✓ |
 | Chem Bench | Combine ingredients to produce powerful boosters | — | — | ✓ |
 | Iron Auto Mine | Automatically produce Iron Ore over time | — | — | ✓ |
 | Crafting Bench | Craft tools, weapons, and useful equipment | ✓ | — | ✓ |
 | Furnace | Smelt and forge raw materials into useful resources | ✓ | — | ✓ |
 | Materials Bench | Refine basic resources into advanced materials | — | — | ✓ |
Important ownership rules
- The Gym, Garage, and Medical Bay are pre-built and limited to one fixed building each; they cannot be duplicated through expansion slots.
- The starting Crafting Bench and Furnace are fixed, but additional copies can be constructed in expansion slots.
- The Radio Tower is constructed in an expansion slot but is limited to one per stronghold.
- Buildings marked as repeatable can occupy multiple expansion slots.
Scaling costs
Constructing or upgrading another repeatable building can dramatically increase future costs. Check the displayed requirements before committing.
Repeatable-building costs depend on the total number of that building counted on your account. Completed copies, packed copies, and copies currently under construction once construction has started all count.
Packing a building does not reduce the count. Unpacking also keeps the same copy counted and does not use the normal repeatable-building scaling costs. Canceling a new construction removes that in-progress copy from the count, while destroying a packed blueprint removes its packed copy from the count.
Constructing the next copy
| Copies before construction | Non-cash materials | Cash | Construction time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1× base | 1× base | 1× base |
| 1 | 10× base | 1× base | 10× base |
| 2 | 100× base | 5× base | 20× base |
| 3 | 1,000× base | 50× base | 30× base |
After this, each additional counted copy multiplies the non-cash material and cash scaling by another 10. After the copies shown above, each additional counted copy increases construction time by another 10 times the base duration.
Upgrading any copy
| Total copies counted | Upgrade cost |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1× base |
| 2 | 5× base |
| 3 | 50× base |
| 4 | 500× base |
Each additional counted copy multiplies upgrade costs by another 10. This applies regardless of which copy you upgrade.
Choosing what to build
Build to support how you want to play:
- Combat and recovery buildings support stat training, equipment, ammunition, and healing.
- Crafting and processing buildings turn gathered resources into components, consumables, and finished equipment.
- Automation buildings provide longer-running production options.
- Vehicles and exploration begin with the Garage and support travel beyond the city.
- Survivor management begins with the Survivor Camp and expands the work your settlement can perform.
- Housing production creates furnishings used in your House.
Open a building name in the live table to see its current recipes and relationships. Individual recipe pages show their requirements, outputs, and which building uses them.
Stronghold area tabs
- Stronghold contains your fixed buildings and expansion slots.
- Survivors manages survivors, prisoners, assignments, Health, and development.
- House contains your personal home and furnishings.
- Outposts let you manage specialized bases at exploration locations.
Planning tips
- Let Quests introduce the early buildings and systems.
- Keep a reserve of common construction materials.
- Check the entire production chain before starting a final item.
- Upgrade buildings that support the Skills and activities you use most.
- Revisit empty slots after leveling; a new slot or building choice may now be available.